I'm afraid I've fallen for Ubuntu

This free operating system is by far the easiest to use of any Linux or Windows versions I've found.

Just added two 160gb hard-drives to the server box I'm using. Looked up on help how to do this, turned out I needed to install a program. Ubuntu, with their Synaptic Manager, found and installed the program in minutes - making it immediately available without having to reboot. I was able to forrmat these two disks within a few more minutes, mount them and share them all within about 15 or 20 minutes total, not having to reboot since I restarted after installing the new hardware.

In Windows (XP), just the reformatting would have taken more than half an hour per disk. And I couldn't use anything but NTFS, which means I couldn't write to these disks except with another Windows box. And, more than likely, I'd have to reboot at least once.

Ubuntu, with it's internet updating, has raised OS's to a completely new level. Debian gives greater security than other distros (historically), but the desktop doesn't give you any greater complexity to run, or a new learning curve to master.

Nice.

Not bad for a free download.

PS. When I have to update to a new release, I found it faster to download and burn an ISO instead of trying to have Synaptic download all the files. It updates faster through the CD and then can get individual updates. Synaptic stopped twice on me, but downloading the ISO with a download manager meant the computer wasn't hogging bandwidth (which HughesNet/DirecWay doesn't like - they throttle you down to what feels like nearly dial-up speed).